I've just finished "Taken at the Flood", by Agatha Christie. This was her 47th book, and was originally published in 1948. The US title is "There is a Tide", both titles of course being taken from the famous speech from Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar":
Quote:
There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries.
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves,
Or lose our ventures.
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The Cloade family are entirely dependent upon the largesse of their wealthy relative, Gordon Cloade. When Gordon unexpectedly marries a young widow, and is then killed in the Blitz in London, all his money goes to his young wife, leaving the Cloade family in financial difficulty. A man then appears in the village suggesting that perhaps Gordon's wife's first husband did not, after all, die, and that therefore her marriage to Gordon was invalid, but he is then murdered. Poirot assists Superintendent Spence to solve the mystery.
A very fine detective story indeed, and the first appearance of Superintendent Spence, who would go on the appear in several more Christie novels. Highly recommended.